Waiting a Lifetime
by bones-is-the-best
Summary: Doc doesn't believe for a second that she is dead. She can't be.


_**From: Doc**_

 _ **Subject: Just tell me you're safe**_

 _ **I don't believe for a second you didn't make it to the escape pods. You've survived worse disasters without breaking a sweat. You're the best Jedi in this whole galaxy, and it'll take more than one lousy Sith battle cruiser going boom to kill you. I had to learn a lot of math in medical school, and I've run the numbers. You've gotta be alive.**_

 _ **There's only one explanation for you not answering my calls. You're on some secret mission, and you couldn't tell ol' Doc for his own safety. I get it, gorgeous–but enough's enough. Give me a shout back because I'm pacing a groove in this deck waiting to hear from you.**_

 _ **And if you decide to surprise me with a personal visit, that's fine, too. I'm easy.**_

 _ **Seriously, everyone's worried. You've been gone too long**_

Doc hadn't slept-actually slept since his wife's disappearance. Every Time he closed his eyes he could see the explosion that everyone said sealed her fate, but Doc couldn't, wouldn't, believe that she was gone. They had been through too much together and he couldn't believe that a Sith battle cruiser of all things could take her from him.

But Doc isn't stupid, he knows that the chances of his wife still being alive after all this time after are slim. But his wife, the amazing Jedi knight who did the impossible on a regular basis did not die on that cruiser he knows for a fact she didn't, after all, she had survived worse. Even before she was officially declared KIA a month after the explosion and all the debris and escape pods had been scanned for signs of life Doc knew they wouldn't find her there. Dead or otherwise.

Kira (or Scourge for that matter) had not felt her death, but they didn't feel her either. She and her force signature were just gone without any signs as to where she had gone. Doc knew there was no short supply of people looking for her, Kira meditated on it for hours, a few times she felt like she felt something, but she couldn't be sure to what it was. Doc also knew that Theron Shan, the SIS agent was keeping his ear to the ground, after all Theron and her had been on countless missions together trying to stop Revan so Doc wasn't surprised to receive a holo call from him on the ship telling him he was following "Any and all leads on the Battlemaster," but that was the last call Doc had received from the agent. Lana Beniko was probably the best at hiding her pain over losing the knight but through Lord Scourge the team had learned she too was looking for the Jedi knight who did the impossible, Doc's wife, the Hero of Tython.

Meanwhile, Doc himself, felt absolutely and utterly useless, his skills were not what was needed to find his wife, put a life-threatening injury in front of him and a suture in his hand, that Doc could deal with. Give him an entire resistance to take care of? Done. But there was nothing Doc could do without being able to without being able to see the injured. He didn't have the force, or have unlimited contacts. Doc was a field medic, plain and simple.

However, that's not say Doc did nothing, he looked through countless articles and databanks of hospitals near (and far) to the explosion, and when the Zakuulian empire emerged full force after their Emperor was killed, Doc looked through their data banks too.

Slowly however, life had to continue, had to change, had to move forward and all of those who spent countless hours looking for her had to pick up the pieces and continue the fight, this time, without her. Scourge was the first to leave, without her, he no longer had reason to stay and sought other means of ridding the world of the emperor. T7, surprisingly, left not long after to help Lana Beniko locate the knight more efficiently as he put it (whether Lana knew he was coming was another question Doc didn't want to ask), Rusk was reassigned to the front lines (well more like the special ops that no one talks about because it's supposed to be secret) about a month after that because the Republic needed every able-bodied soldier they had. This left Doc with Kira, the Padawan turned Jedi knight, her Padawan.

The Jedi Order was scrambled after the battlemaster's disappearance and Kira, in light of her old master's absence took on more responsibility then she had ever had to before and with Kira Doc went planet to planet trying to lessen the blows the Republic and Jedi Order were taking from Zakuul. Doc had saved Kira from quite a few close calls, one time especially though Kira had gotten countless stab wounds on her arms, leg, and a particularly deep gouge on her side side, from a Knight of Zakuul after saving the citizens of Alderaan from an attack Zakuul had done earlier that morning. However, no matter how many times he patched Kira up, she kept fighting, kept going where the order told her to go.

Kira, on the other hand, kept Doc busy and for that he was more thankful then she would ever know, because if he stopped fighting, stopped using kolto packs, Doc didn't know if he had the strength to keep moving on.

Slowly the Jedi Order, and more importantly the Jedi went into exile or died fighting Zakuul. Satele Shan herself could no longer be found or contacted any longer and needless to say, Kira was frustrated by this. Slowly, every fellow Jedi Kira knew followed Satele Shan into exile or was killed in action and it wasnt long till Kira herself started talking about going back to Tython or some backwater planet to meet with her peers and regroup.

Then came the day that the Republic surrendered to Zakuul. About a year after her "death" the Republic singed the Treaty of Zakuul, signed by Chancellor Saresh of course. This pushed Kira over the edge. With no Republic to defend and no Jedi Council to guide her, Kira left Doc to find some trace of Jedi she could join in exile. Doc understood, Kira was fighting a battle on her own, own he could not help her with, and while neither of them said it, they both knew that neither of them were her. And overcoming unthinkable odds like Zakuul wasn't in the cards for them at the time but _she_ could have done it, Doc knew that for a fact.

But with Kira's absence, Doc found himself alone with his thoughts. For him, that was more dangerous than being in a mine field. He thought about going back to Balmorra but after landing in the space dock to go to the war-torn planet decided he couldn't go back, because then he would be right where she first found him and ending up in the same place before her almost seemed like he was acting like she was never there at all. And she deserved better than that, Doc knew that as well. So, he boarded the next shuttle out (Kira had taken the ship at Doc's insistence).

He bounced around a while after that. He tried keeping in touch with everyone he could, just in case she came back one day, and they would have to bring everyone back together. When he had last spoken to Scourge, Scourge had gone in the darkest corners of space to find someone who could replace their Jedi knight (Doc didn't believe he ever would. She was one of a kind). Kira didn't keep her holochannel open anymore, some exile thing Doc didn't care to understand but Doc figured she was safe enough. T7 was as happy and determined as he ever was to be working with Lana to find his master if his data log said anything. Rusk, however, while Doc had expected him to answer his holocall or send a quick email, never did, and that worried Doc. He heard that a whole platoon of troops had been captured or killed by Zakuul and if Rusk was in that platoon, Somedays Doc didn't know if he hoped he was dead or alive.

But even if she did end up coming back, Doc doubted it would ever be the same for the ol' crew as too much time had passed since they last saw the Jedi.

Doc ended up in the Outer Rim, waiting for her, because when she did come back, Doc would be ready for her, he'd wait a lifetime for her. That he swore.


End file.
